Skin is the outermost organ of the body, and it has various functions and significantly affects our appearance and image. Total skin weight is about 3 to 5 kg of body weight, depending on a person's weight. Skin is made up of various cells and specific structure, and covers the outer surface of the body to function as a primary barrier against the external environment, including water conservation, temperature regulation, body protection from external stimuli such as UV, and protection from bacterial infection. Further, skin protects the body from physical or chemical injuries, infection caused by microorganisms (e.g., bacteria, fungi and parasites), UV damage, dryness or the like, and it also functions as sensory receptors in response to various external stimuli, and recognizes foreign antigens to generate immune cells.
Accordingly, skin may be easily damaged by external factors, whereby reactive oxygen species are abruptly produced, leading to stratum corneum damage. The stratum corneum damage is considered as a skin barrier impairment, which may proceed to a secondary infection by microorganisms. Subsequently, the damaged area may worsen to become a skin wound. Further, transdermal water loss through the damaged skin increases to cause dehydration. To prevent such event, abnormal sebum secretion occurs due to the abrupt secretion of sebum, resulting in excessive dryness or oiliness. Finally, such skin problems may be accompanied by itching, erythema, tissue damage or the like. Therefore, in order to minimize the tissue damage, a series of the above-described events should be suitably treated.
Recently, much of the focus has been placed on skin-protecting compositions comprising composite compounds of natural origin, for the purpose of preventing and improving skin damages, alleviating skin inflammation, or moisturizing skin. Examples of the natural extracts, which are used in the skin protecting compositions for the purpose of preventing and improving the skin damages, include animal/plant extracts, natural polymers such as collagen, cell activators such as amino acids and vitamins, and moisturizers such as glycerin and 1,3-butylene glycol. For example, Korean Patent No. 10-424726 discloses a skin-protecting cosmetic composition comprising vitamin C and phytosphingosine, and Korean Patent No. 10-364289 discloses a skin-protecting cosmetic composition comprising α-Hydroxy acid (AHA) and an epidermal growth factor (EGF) for alleviating skin irritation thereof.
However, there is a problem in that antioxidants, cell activators, or moisturizers used in the skin-protecting compositions should be separately used according to each purpose due to reactivity between each ingredients or incompatible properties, and formulation instability. Further, since approved ingredients that are allowed to be used in cosmetics, food, and medicine are different from each other, some ingredients used in medicine may not be used in cosmetics. For example, antibiotics are powerful materials to control microorganisms, but they can be used only in medical fields, not in cosmetics and food.
Accordingly, there is the need for materials that can be easily and safely used in medicine, cosmetics and food, while having antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, wound-healing and moisturizing effects.
Under such condition, the present inventors have conducted studies to develop composite materials that are safe upon application and easily used in various formulations, while having excellent antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, wound-healing and moisturizing effects, thereby completing the present invention.